In early U.S. Pat. No. 4,162,610, there is provided an electronic diary and time scheduler, permitting a user to enter at will into an electronic memory an entire schedule of daily events and appointments for a number of different days, and to selectively recall from the memory and display the daily schedule for any of the desired days. A system is also provided for communication between a plurality of such diaries and a central data processor or scheduler to transfer time schedule information therebetween.
In later application Ser. No. 566,312, filed Dec. 28, 1983, the information retrieved from memory is expanded to also include subschedules from any selected day, or other period, to convey or communicate to the user a series of different times-of-day, for a selected time interval when no events or appointments have been previously made, permitting the user to promptly ascertain those times that are still available for appointment or use, in order to efficiently utilize his time. Additionally, this later application also provides for serially reading out the schedule of appointments and no-appointments in chronological order regardless of the random manner of entry. Still further the later application also provides a printer for supplying a printed record of any selected schedule or subschedule, or both, that can be used instead of the visual display on a screen, if desired, or can be used along with the visual display to provide a permanent record.